A/N: As a reward for your patience, dear readers, today's update in a two-for-one special! I love you guys a lot, have two chapters in one day!

TW for suicide-baiting.

Hot tears burn the most in cold darkness. Koriand'r was finding this to be true over and over again.

There had been a time when she thought she had no more tears to cry, years ago when she was a slave. And maybe it was partially true: she'd had no more tears to cry as a slave. Free, it was as though a fresh spring of tears had begun to flow in her. There were so many more ways than one for a heart to break.

A baby. That's what it had all been about. A baby that almost was, and then was not. It was Dick's, of course. He had pushed her away, but under the spell of one of Raven's brothers, they hadn't been able to help themselves, and that was all it had taken. She'd thought about telling him, but the timing was never right – she wasn't desperate, or afraid to raise a child by herself, and didn't want Dick thinking any differently. But she was a warrior still, and that was her undoing as much as her salvation. On the Blackest Night, she won the battle, but lost the pregnancy. So she ran, and forgot, trying to protect herself from the clutches of despair.

But now she remembered everything.

And alone, in the cold, and the dark, the spring within her flowed like never before.


Alone, in the cold, and the dark, thoughts clicked into place. There were plenty of things Roy was able to do. Telling the future wasn't one of them.

So why, he wondered, did he have a dream predicting the arrival of Five and his siblings at Ollie's house, and warning him to run? Why could he still feel Joey's hand on his shoulder, real as anything?

Roy banged his head against the wall. "Fuck."

"I don't know what you expected," Jade's voice said. "I'm still mad at you."

Roy looked up. The assassin guarding him had been replaced by Jade.

"Wasn't directed at you, but I'm not surprised."

Jade crossed her arms. "What were you thinking? I don't need your help."

"What are you even doing here, Jade? With the League? This isn't like you."

Jade slammed the bars of Roy's cell with her palm. "I'm getting my daughter back! What the hell do you think?"

Roy felt himself recoil at the thought. "You can't be serious."

"This is my only chance!" It may have been the light, but it looked like Jade's eyes were starting to glisten. "I need closure, goddammit! I can't give up, not if there's any possibility of getting her back, and, as a mother herself, Talia has been more than sympathetic."

Roy thought of Jason, with his strange eyes, his anger, his cold hands, and all the fear he hid, even when he thought nobody was looking. He was almost unrecognizable as the sweet kid he'd been before he died.

"You don't want her back like this," he said. "Please, believe me."

"Anything's better than nothing," Jade replied, voice almost too quiet to hear. "Believe me."


"You understand," the woman – Talia – said, "that when my father finds out about your friends, he will almost certainly slaughter them, yes?"

He nervously tapped his fingers against the handles of his crutches. "Yes, but I can't justify hurting them. They haven't done anything to me, as far as I remember."

"The past is not what you should be concerned with. Right now, the future is uncertain, and it is the future we should be looking toward. You saw what the people who absorbed the Convergence became. You and I both have to make sure the same doesn't happen to Father."

His brows wrinkled in confusion. "How are we supposed to do that?"

"Find the light within you, trust it, and embrace it, pushing away the darkness, no matter how safe or how strong the darkness feels. Embrace the light, forsake the dark."


"So, what happens now?" Roy asked.

"I assume Ra's al Ghul will have you and Koriand'r executed the second he finds out you're here," Jade replied with a shrug.

Roy shot to his feet as though lightning had just struck beside him, his chains jerking him violently backward as soon as he did.

"Kori's here?"

His heart raced in his chest. Was she in chains like he was? The Kori he knew would rather die than ever be a prisoner. Jason used to understand that.

"Yeah, she's here, dumbass. Did you think the League would let her go after all the shit you two pulled?"

He sagged against the wall, feeling beyond drained. He'd tried so hard to free the people he loved. Had his sacrifice been for nothing?

"She didn't even do anything," he said weakly.

"It sure didn't look that way." Jade crossed her arms. "I don't need saving, Roy. You three should've left when you had the chance. I make my own decisions, whether you like it or not."

"Jade, you –" Roy started.

"I don't understand?" Jade snapped. "Is that really what you were about to say to me? 'You don't understand! I'm just trying to protect you! Blah blah blah!' I am sick of that! Have you considered that I'm an adult, too? That I've been doing what I do just as long as you've been doing what you do? That I've seen some of the most insane shit this world has to offer and still survived? I hate it when you talk to me like I'm and idiot because you used to be one of the golden boys: Green Arrow's sidekick, Teen Titan, Justice League member of the month, and whatever else, while I was on the opposite side. There's a reason I'm still alive, asshole, and its because I know what I'm goddamn doing!"

Roy looked at the floor. "You're right. You're right and I have been an ass, but please, at least believe me when I say that a Lazarus Pit isn't the right way to get our daughter back."

Jade lowered her eyes. "I can't. You know I can't. Even the tiniest scrap of something is better than nothing."

Roy nodded sadly. He understood too well how she was feeling.

"Can I make one last request?" he asked.


In theory, Kori could've broken out any time she wanted to. Iron bars, stone walls, cold chains, armed guards, what were they to her? Nothing. The only chains that held her were those of regret, of feeling that, on some level, she hadn't done enough yet. She'd pushed away the people she loved, ran straight toward trouble, and now was being punished for it. And what was punishment but incentive to be better next time?

There was the soft tapping of footsteps on the stone, accompanied by a slight clinking sound, metal on metal. Two figures emerged from the gloom, first Roy, then Jade. Roy crouched down outside Kori's cell, while the assassin folded her arms and leaned against the wall, staring at the opposite wall.

"Don't get all sappy," she said.

Roy pressed a hand against the bars, and Kori saw that the clinking sounds had come from the chains that wrapped his arms, binding his wrists together.

"Hi," he said softly, voice on the verge of cracking.

"Hello," Kori replied. "How are you?"

"I've been better." Roy smiled sadly. "You?"

"About the same," Kori replied, matching his expression.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"We are both grownups, let's not get into an apology battle. Are you okay?"

"I'm only panicking a little."

Kori twisted uncomfortably in her chains. "I know how you feel."

Roy briefly glanced over his shoulder at Jade, then back at Kori, lowering his voice. "Have I ever taught you diné bizaad?"

"I think so," Kori replied, matching his tone. "We've been friends for a long time, I can't imagine you wouldn't have."

"Well, we're speaking it right now, so I'd say I definitely have."

"Hey," Jade interjected in English, "I know what you're doing."

Roy froze.

"So be glad it's me guarding you and not somebody who cares. And give whatever escape plan you're coming up with a cool name, at least," she finished.

Roy seemed to relax, silently thanking Jade for the small gesture of kindness before continuing, in diné bizaad, "We do need to make a plan."

Kori smiled. "What do you have in mind?"


Talia al Ghul was probably the only person in the room who felt no fear or even the mildest hint of awe when Ra's al Ghul finally made his grand entrance into the stronghold. Even veteran assassins were unable to fully compose themselves as their immortal master, ordinary in stature, made giant by his bearing, swept into the room like a bank of fog settling over a fishing village. Wide eyes and bated breath, white knuckles and rigid spines all followed as he silently approached his daughter, looking at none of them yet seeming to judge them all.

"Is everything in place?" he asked, not bothering to give his daughter a proper greeting and not needing to. Ra's al Ghul was not a man to waste words, especially when there was business to attend to.

Talia nodded once. "Yes, Father. But I can't say this is a good idea. I have studied the effect that absorption of a Convergence has on a person, and I must say, madness does not become you."

Ra's scoffed at his daughter's council. "Unlike those untitled seven who came before me, I do not intend to fracture the powers wantonly. I will keep them whole, and my League will once again become unchallenged, untouchable as it once was. I am a much wiser man than seven idiots whose names were forgotten as easily as their deeds, and you would do well to remember that, daughter, if you wish to remain at my side."

Though her eyes narrowed, Talia bowed her head all the same.

"Yes, Baba," she muttered. She turned away and grabbed Jason's shoulder, feeling only slight relief once her nails were digging into the boy's shoulder through his sweatshirt.

"Come, Father," she said, leading Jason from the room without even the slightest glance backward. "The Pit awaits."

"You would bring the detective's reject with you?" her father asked. If Talia hadn't known better, she would have sworn she heard a note of amusement in his tone.

"He seems a more suitable heir than Damian, and if he is to play that role, then it's for the better that he learns as much as he can." She was almost amazed by how easy it was to lie and believe the lie. It always was when there was an element of plausibility mixed into the nonsense.

"Hm."

Jason, whether from fear or from understanding on some level how much better off he would be if Ra's didn't know that he was the key that could defuse the bomb that the Convergence created, stayed perfectly silent, stared straight ahead, and allowed Talia to lead him toward whatever awaited them at the bottom of the stronghold.


The green of the Pit was mesmerizing. It seemed to call to him, daring him to disturb its surface, to discover what it felt like against his skin.

Talia placed a hand on his arm, a silent warning he heard loud and clear: Don't.

"When will it be time?" the old man asked.

"Any moment now," she said. "Magic is not an exact science."

"Pah! I expected more from you, Talia."

"My apologies, Father."

There was no emotion in her voice, except maybe annoyance. She was just as proud as her father, just as regal. She didn't seem to fear him the way the others did.

He wondered about his own father, suddenly more frustrated than ever at his memory loss. The old man had called him "The Detective's Reject," and Talia had mentioned him replacing someone named Damian.

Damian.

"Hermanito."

The memory was brief, like a whisper, but he knew, deep down, that he had a brother somewhere.

The Pit began to bubble. He watched in fascination as the bubbles darkened, beginning to carry inky blackness to the surface. When they burst, swirls of stars rippled outward with the blackness until the whole pool looked like the night sky. Then, the bubbling stopped, leaving all in attendance staring in awe for a moment at the perfect stillness laid out below them, like a mirror held up to the Universe.

Then Talia looked at her watch.

"One hour," she said.

"I would prefer not to wait," her father replied, walking down the sloping circle of rock surrounding the Pit. The lowest point of the circle, directly opposite the entrance to the cavern, was no more than a foot above the surface of the pool.

The old man removed his green and gold mantle, leaving his chest bare, then stepped down into the swirling galaxy contained within the pool. A set of steps must have been hidden beneath the surface, from the way he descended. He took one step at a time, reverent, until he was completely submerged.

Talia watched with an intensity that couldn't be categorized as disapproving or hopeful. She simply watched.

When the old man emerged from the water, the irises of his eyes were an intense, inhuman gold. And he was staring directly at Talia and her chosen heir.

"You," the old man said, raising his hand and pointing at his so-called heir with a look that clearly communicated he would not remain the heir for long, would not remain at all for long.

Talia closed her eyes and sighed.


Pathetic little boy, trying to be an assassin without killing. Ra's felt no sympathy for Jason Todd as he had the boy chained to one of the stone columns filling the room. The boy would watch as his friends were sacrificed to the beings on the other side of the Void, and then Ra's would eat his heart.

It seemed only fitting. There would be no tolerance for those who defied him. Not in the slightest.


I don't wanna die, Roy realized. At least, not like this. I never even got to tell Donna I was sorry.

But he walked calmly anyway. Because this time, he had a plan to save his life, not end it. And there was almost a 1% chance it might work.


I am not going to die, Kori resolved. Not like this, and not today.

She walked proudly despite the guards surrounding her, because she had a plan. A plan to save everyone. And it had to work.


They're going to die, Talia thought, mind racing despite her calm outward appearance. And the Essence will never forgive me.

She'd had a plan. A plan to save the world. And one misstep had ruined everything.


Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall at any second. Tears of anger and frustration. He didn't understand any of it.

He had friends and a little brother. Somehow, he'd hurt his wrist and ankle. He knew how to swordfight. He liked fantasy.

I want to remember. Please, let me remember what all this is about. I want to remember. I want to remember. Iwanttoremember.


Tinkatinkatinkatink.

A vessel on one of the shelves behind Siaru started to shake. That was unusual.

"Ducra?" the boy called softly. "Essence?"


It felt insulting to Ra's that neither of his victims looked afraid. He wanted them to be afraid. He wanted to smell their fear as the life drained from their bodies.

They both stared at him, faces strangely blank. They were mocking him!

"Who's first?" he asked with a snarl.


Roy stepped forward, feeling strangely serene as he stared mortality in the face.

"Any final words?" Ra's al Ghul sneered, a sword made of thought materializing in his hand.

Roy smiled as he closed his eyes. "What do stars do best?"


The star within Kori burst forth, not this time as starbolts, but as a white-hot nimbus that poured from every part of her and filled the cavern with blinding light.

What stars do best is, of course, glow.

She'd learned that in a movie.


Talia was blinded in an instant, but she knew how to move when blind, and move she did.

She picked the locks keeping Jason in chains as easily as if she could see, and whispered, "It's okay."

It felt strange to be reassuring like that. She convinced herself it was only so Jason would know who was freeing him. It did lower the chance of getting punched.


The vessel on the shelf exploded.

If Ducra hadn't been a ghost, she would've exhaled sharply at that point.

"Well, shit."


Jason remembered everything. And he immediately wished he couldn't. There was too much darkness clawing at his mind, too much unaddressed trauma.

Someone was laughing a horrible, humorless laugh that wouldn't stop.

"Talia," he gasped. "I can't stop him. I'm sorry."

"Who told you you'd be doing it alone?"


When his sight returned, Ra's almost laughed. The three mortals and his daughter were staring him down, poised to attack. Talia had a bronze sword drawn, the one thing that could hurt him - if she could get close to him. The one called Arsenal had a gun protruding from his metal arm, while the one called Starfire brandished a sphere of white light in either hand; useless, except to maybe slow him down temporarily. Jason Todd had nothing, not even his crutches, but still limped toward him like a street dog too stupid to know when it had lost a fight.

"What do you expect to do?" he declared, laughing at the utter idiocy of them all. "Daughter, your 'heir' doesn't even have a weapon."

Talia narrowed her eyes in defiance. "What do you mean, Baba? He has the greatest weapon of all: knowledge."

Then, she grabbed the boy by the collar and shoved him into the Pit.


When Jason hit the water, it didn't feel wet, exactly. It felt the way a little kid imagines a cloud would feel: soft and inviting, wrapping itself around him like a warm embrace, but at the same time, suffocating and too warm. He hated it.

He couldn't tell which direction was which, it was all a void of stars, like being trapped in space, he couldn't breathe, just suspended forever in the void. He tried to inhale, but the void was choking him. Then, in the darkness, he saw a woman, squat and grey and tired, reluctantly holding something out toward him. A ring, shaped like a barbed hook. He took it and swallowed it, and then he knew where the surface was.


One hand appeared above the surface, grasping the stone, then the other, and Jason pulled himself to the surface. He climbed out of the pool, water streaming from his hair and clothes. Talia worried for a moment that it hadn't worked, but then she noticed his eyes. The irises were completely grey.

"Remember, Jason," she said, "embrace the light."

He tilted his head to the side, regarding her like a cat in the dark.

"Why?"

Talia inhaled sharply. You knew full well that this could happen.

"What do you mean?"

Jason straightened, then took a few steps toward Ra's before turning back to her.

"I mean," he said, "why should I embrace the light? I see what the darkness is now: power. I now have the power to fix things, Talia!" He was smiling like a little boy. "I can stop criminals without ever having to kill them! I can just make them despair until they can hardly even get out of bed in the morning! I can make them remember every terrible thing they've ever done, and truly feel remorse for once! I can really do what Batman never could: stop criminals for good without killing! I'll be amazing!"

Ra's was watching the exchange with an amusement that was almost gleeful.

"Man, shut up."

Roy Harper, the mouthy ginger, took a few steps toward Jason, staring him down with something akin to annoyance.

"When are you going to get the hell over yourself?" he asked.

Jason looked confused.

"What are you talking about?" he replied, though the question was clearly rhetorical.

"'Wahh, poor me, every other week I turn into a psycho because Batman doesn't love meeeeee!' How are you not tired at this point?"

Jason looked a little shaken.

"Come on," Roy continued, extending a hand to his friend, "let it go. Break the cycle, Jaybird. Be your own person."

Cautiously, Jason took the hand extended to him. Then he twisted it hard and pulled the other man toward him.

"That's funny, coming from you," he retorted. "You really are pathetic, Roy, you know that? Crying about your dead daughter and your dead best friend and how nobody loves you anymore because you were a dick to them and pushed them all away." Roy sank to his knees, Jason still gripping his arm like a vice. "What are you even doing with your life besides trying to end it? If you wanna end things so bad, why haven't you done it yourself? Do you get off on making everyone around you miserable, or are you really just too depressed to kill yourself? Or, maybe, are you afraid you'll fuck that up just like everything else you do?"

Roy's shoulders were shaking when Jason dropped his hand.

Jason straightened, looking Talia in the eye with a manic grin on his face.

"Damn, I'm good at this. Does anyone else want to try, or can I go now?"

Koriand'r soared out of Talia's blind spot right for Jason, grabbing him by the sweatshirt and dragging him along the floor until he slammed into the cavern wall, struggling against her strong grip to no avail.

"What, exactly," she asked, "was it that you hoped to accomplish with that? We are not your enemies, Jason. I think it would be best if you didn't treat us like we are."

Jason sneered. "Then stay out of my way. You don't even know me. You're just my older brother's friends. We're not some team or whatever you think this is. Why don't you crawl back to Dick and tell him about your dead baby in yet another sad attempt to get him to stay?"

The princess' shoulders went rigid. Talia suddenly had a plan. She moved closer to the two of them.

"How did you know about that?" Kori asked, the emotion in her voice hard to define.

Jason laughed, a single, harsh bark without much humor in it at all. "Haven't you been paying attention? You're not the only one with shiny, new powers! And I think mine are cooler than 'become a walking flash grenade.'"

"Indigo," Talia said, causing Jason and Koriand'r both to turn toward her, "for compassion. Your aura has quite a few prominent colors, Jason; green for willpower, yellow for fear, violet for love. But the strongest color I've seen is indigo. Your compassion is what makes you who you are. Look at what you're doing. Where is the compassion in your actions? That void can give you all the powers it has to offer, but if you're no longer yourself once you've accepted them, will you still be satisfied?"

Jason redoubled his efforts to free himself from his friend's grip, again to no avail.

"Jason!" Talia commanded, beginning to grow increasingly annoyed. "Look at me!"

Surprisingly, he obeyed, grey eyes wild as he fixed them on her.

"Now answer me. Will you be satisfied with losing yourself and becoming just like the people I trained you to fight at the All-Caste? Are all not equal, Jason?"

Jason closed his eyes.

"No," he said. "I'm tired of losing myself."

"Then let it go." Then, she addressed Koriand'r, "You can let him go."

The princess released her grip on Jason, and he slid to the floor, then straightened and walked toward Ra's.

"I don't know what you expect to do, boy," Ra's addressed him. "You and I have already accepted the power of the Convergence. Unless you would like me to kill you now, you'd best accustom yourself to this for the next thousand years!"

"I expect," Jason replied, "to let it go."

Then, he grabbed Ra's shoulder with one hand and slammed the heel of his hand into the older man's chest with the other. A shockwave seemed to ripple through the cavern, then both men doubled over, vomiting a black liquid that crawled back into the Pit of its own accord.

When they both stopped being sick and straightened back up, Ra's frowned.

"What –" he started to say, but he was cut off by a blow to the back of the head. He collapsed, and behind him stood Roy, looking relieved.


The sunlight reflecting off the water burned, yet also felt good. Not only did it help after getting sucker-punched by magical depression, it was also something Roy hadn't expected to see again. It was a new day, and it was one he was ready to see.

After escaping the League stronghold with Talia's blessing, they had retrieved Jason's boat from Maine and were headed back to Kori's boat/house/whatever.

"I should probably start apologizing now," Jason said.

He seemed different. It wasn't just the way he carried himself, his wrist and ankle having healed from exposure to the Pit. It wasn't that his eyes were, for the first time in probably almost five years, free of green, gray, or any other color that wasn't brown with a splash of blue. He was just… different.

"There's a lot of shit I did, and I swear I'm sorry for all of it."

Kori put a hand on his shoulder.

"We know," she interrupted. "Who hasn't been possessed or… whatever at some point or other? If I did not know better, I would say you're starting to act like a superhero again."

Kori seemed different, too. It wasn't just the superpower upgrade, or the return of her memories. The way she carried herself now made her "old" self seem insecure, and considering how insecurity had never really been one of Kori's character traits, she now seemed invincible.

Jason laughed.

"What will you do now?"

Kori sighed. "I think it's time I found Dick and the two of us had a long discussion. He deserves the truth."

Roy nodded. He still wasn't sure he was ready to forgive Dick, but he also wasn't sure Dick was unforgiveable.

"What will you do?" Kori asked him.

Roy looked down at the knuckles of his prosthetic hand. It might not be anything, and he didn't have much to go on at all, but –

"I've been thinking," he said, almost before he realized the words were leaving his mouth. "Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think, somehow, Joey might still be around. Whether as a ghost, or some kind of revenant/zombie/whatever-Jason-was, I don't know. But if he is out there somewhere, I have to find him."

Kori kissed him on the cheek.

"That's very noble. Jason, what will you do?"

Jason looked lost.

"I'm… not really sure," he said. "I'm so tired of being angry. I don't want to be defined by Batman anymore. But I don't know how not to be."

Kori nodded, then ruffled his hair.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out."

After a few moments of thinking, a smile crept across Jason's face.

"Hey, Roy, think you could use a detective on your quest for your undead missing person?"

"Sure," Roy answered, "you know any?"


Kori gave the boys parting kisses one last time, then, everything packed into a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, flew away toward Gotham.

She felt free. Not just from physical chains and cages. Not just from magically amplified despair. Not just because of the power boost given to her by all the Suns of a new Universe coming into its own. She felt free to be on her own, because now it was her choice. And she liked the possibilities she saw.


"So," Jason asked, "where should we start?"

He was a little more than a little excited to be going on an adventure outside of Gotham on purpose. He almost didn't care what he'd be doing. He hadn't felt this good since… before he died, he realized. Death had been right; it was time to start living.

"We have to go to Star City first," Roy said. "I kinda… ran out on my family, and I need to apologize."

Jason nodded. "Fair enough! We can do that!"

"Careful, Mr. I-Don't-Do-Teams, you almost sound excited."

Despite his tone, Roy was smiling.

"Maybe I almost am."


"Is it over, Mother?" The Essence asked.

"Yes," a voice that was assuredly not Ducra's replied. "It's over."

Talia al Ghul stepped into the light.

"I have to ask, though, was it necessary to take Jason's memories?" she continued. "He ultimately defeated my father with his memories returned to him."

The Essence crossed her arms. "If you had brought the child like we asked, maybe we would not have taken that precaution."

Talia huffed. "You never would've been able to prepare the child in time. It has barely been a year. Jason was the best option you had."

"So now what will you do, Talia?"

"Train her like any other," Talia replied as though that were the most obvious answer in the world.

"And her parents?"

"Neither suspect. Which, unfortunately, makes returning her unlikely."

"I suppose the next Shiva will not train herself."

The Essence despised Lady Shiva, but she tried not to let it show.

"I suppose."

"Pray, Talia, that we never need each other again."

Talia gave her an ironic smile as she turned to leave.

"I already do, Essence."

A/N: The first major arc is DONE, and with it, my attempts to pull from the comics directly. Well, almost. The first chapter of the next arc and a couple concepts pull from Red Hood/Arsenal, but it's mostly just yours truly doing whatever the hell she wants from here on out.
- "So, dead babies, huh? Does this mean no Mar'i?" Not at all! In fact, I plan to fully resolve Kori's arc in one of the installments of a miniseries about how the world changes after the Convergence. There's too much story potential there to ignore.
- Hey, DC, guess what? Women have complex emotions, too. Even the "villainous" ones.
- Diné bizaad is the Navajo way to say "the Navajo language" and it's the only phrase I manage to remember consistently. Which I guess is fine, since I have no practical use for knowing said language. But I'm still salty.
- I swear I'm done with the Stardust references now. At least, probably.
- I'm just gonna warn you guys right now, the mystery is slow-burn as hell. I have it planned out, but it's not getting solved until Major Arc 3. Though, you're welcome to ask me about it here or on the blog, and I'd be happy to discuss it with you! I'm trying not to make it too convoluted, but it's just a whole thing.
And that's all for Major Arc 1! Short stories, playlists, art, and Major Arc 2 are all ahead! Unless I die unexpectedly! That'd suck. Comments are, as always, cherished forever.